Today’s Yahrtzeits & History – 25 Av

· The final in a series of Latin anti-Jewish Laws were passed, 531. The Law of Justinian Concerning Heretics and Manichaeans and Samaritans forbade a Jew to bear witness in court against an orthodox Christian.
· Jews who were previously expelled from France are invited back by King Louis IX, 1249..
· Peter Stuyvesant barred Jews from military service, 1655.
· Many Jews of Copenhagen were killed when the British bombed the city in 1807.
· Alexander II abolished the Cantonist Decree in his Manifesto, 1855. It forbade pressuring Cantonist soldiers to accept baptism and reduced the draft quotas for Jews to a proportion of the population equal to that required of non-Jews. A decree later that year reduced the term of army service for Cantonists to 15 years.
· A Jewish agricultural colony was established in New Jersey, 1891. This was one of several attempts at Jewish settlement in the Americas.
· The Nazis took 500 Jews from the Kovno Ghetto to be killed, 1941.
· The Amsterdam hideout of Anne Frank was discovered by the Nazis, 1944.